I'm one of those guys who lived most of his life south of I-10, and am about to move to Illinois. I can tell you that the VAST majority of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, etc are NOT yankees. It's the midwest: where people have enormous common sense, want to earn a living, shoot their guns, raise their kids, harvest their crops, and be left alone.
What skews the board is a few large population centers that have the power to drive the train in another direction while the rest of the folks get taken along for the ride.